


Gordon Tubed

by MercuryHomophony



Series: Gordon Tubed and the Clone Chronicles [1]
Category: Half-Life
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28474752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryHomophony/pseuds/MercuryHomophony
Summary: A gift for the Pro-ship HLVRAI Secret Santa!The prompt was "clone!Gordon au (the clone is a copy of hlvrai Gordon from when he first started working in Black Mesa)"When Gordon wakes up in a tube, with alarms blaring all around him, he has no idea what's happening. Fortunately, there's a friendly security guard available to fill him in.
Relationships: Benrey & Gordon Freeman, Benrey & OC, Gordan Freeman & The Science Team, possible Benrey/Gordon Freeman
Series: Gordon Tubed and the Clone Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2094531
Comments: 20
Kudos: 46





	1. Chapter 1

Gordon woke up slowly. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, thick and groggy like a bad hangover, but he didn’t remember drinking last night. His stomach didn’t have that awful sour churn to it either, which he was distantly thankful for. He drifted at the edge of wakefulness, quietly and passively cataloging the sensations. He wasn’t in any pain, but his mind was moving slowly. He was a little chilly, but that was to be expected when you were floating in a tube-

…

Hold on.

Gordon opened his eyes, blinking them against the viscous liquid that surrounded him. It glowed a faint and sickly green, making it difficult to see through. He jerked in surprise, instinctively holding his breath, only to realize his mouth and nose were already full of liquid. He blinked, then slowly breathed in. The liquid moved with his lungs, and he realized that he wasn’t drowning.

Weird.

He wriggled around for a moment, trying to orient himself and take stock of his situation. He was dressed in a simple black jumpsuit - clearly one designed with whatever this liquid was in mind, as it resembled a scuba skinsuit. He was surrounded by a glowing, thick liquid, contained within some kind of tube. He managed to wedge himself against one side, pressing his face to the other and peering out to look at the surrounding room.

It was clearly a lab of some sort - he could see other tubes, similar to his own, with consoles hooked up to them. Some were empty - two had been shattered, and he could see bodies lying outside of them, surrounded by goo. Across the room, there were a series of consoles and screens, presumably monitoring whatever was in containment.

Which was currently him.

Hm.

What the hell had he been doing to wake up like this? Last night, he had… gone home, and gone to sleep. He’d been pretty tired, but he was certain he’d gone right home and fell into bed, exhausted from his first day at Black Mesa. Then…

No, wait. Then he had come back in to Black Mesa. Second day on the job, and they’d had him file some on-boarding paperwork, plus he had to complete some medical tests. There were some really weird things listed, too, like the cybernetics health plan options and the mandatory backup employee cloning progra-

Oh.

Oh.

Oh shit. That was right. He’d gone under to let them take the brain-scan they’d need for the cloning program. And he’d woken up in a test tube. So this was either the worst first-week hazing he’d had since graduate school, or he was a clone.

Great. Awesome. Now he just had to remember what they’d told him about the cloning program. From what he recalled on the paperwork, it was standard procedure for Black Mesa to create backup clones of employees engaged in certain projects or within certain departments, to ensure that should a fatal accident occur, they would be able to safely reconstitute the clone of anyone killed. Employees who were covered by this program had to get regular brain-scans, so that the clone’s memories could be accurately updated over time. It was entirely a precaution, they’d told him, and one that was rarely used. He wished he had asked more about that.

God, how long did they say the gap between brain-scans were? Six months? They’d mentioned that some of the experiments could be dangerous, but had he really not even survived his first year? Shit, that was lame. He hoped whatever had killed him had at least been cool.

He also thought he recalled a procedure on what to expect when a clone was woken up. There were (very reasonable) concerns regarding someone’s mental health and stability when faced with the fact that they were a clone of someone else, and not a unique individual in and of themselves. There was supposed to be a team of scientists to make sure the clone was physically stable and healthy, plus some company counselors on hand to help them battle the ensuing ennui.

However, there was no one at all around. Just an empty room, save for the two (presumably dead or inert) clones from the shattered tubes.

A steady sound that Gordon had originally thought was a growing headache slowly resolved into distant blaring klaxons, and as he squinted through the glass at the door of the lab, he could see emergency lights flashing outside.

Oh shit. Well, at least now he had a clue to what had killed the original Gordon. If there were some sort of full-facility emergency happening, all bets were off. He’d read over the emergency dossiers his first day. There were a lot of potentially fatal things here at Black Mesa, especially if there had been a containment failure in Anomalous Materials. God, he hoped the original Gordon hadn’t died from radiation poisoning. That would have been such a terrible way to go.

—

The alarms continued to blare, and Gordon was slowly resigning himself to the fact that no one was coming, and that the entirety of his existence was going to be floating in a tube, listening to an endless stream of ear-splitting klaxons. There wasn’t even a clock in here, so he didn’t have any way of measuring the time aside from just counting.

He was at 1,436 seconds (he had gotten to 2,400, and then lost count when a distant explosion had caught his attention. There had been no additional follow-up, and no more explosions, and he had been forced to reluctantly restart) when the door opened abruptly.

He shot upright, nearly bashing his head against the glass of the tube, as a security guard marched into the lab, looking around with a bored expression.

Then, his eyes hit Gordon’s tube, and his face lit up.

“Hey!” Gordon tried to shout. The goo muffled the words in his own mouth, but he could faintly make them out. Hopefully this guard could, too. “Hey, what’s happening? Can you let me out?”

“Uhhhh I dunno, Gordon Feetman,” the guard said, still grinning at him through the glass. Gordon choked on a laugh at that. What kind of fucking nickname is Feetman, he wondered, before realizing that shit! This guy knew him!

Or… knew _him_. The him that’s dead now. It’s weird, he hadn’t really felt the existential dread they briefed him about before they took the brain-scan, but he did feel a loose sense of grief for what he missed in the time since the brain-scan had been taken, and sympathy for the people who knew the original Gordon. Heck, he was apparently close enough with this guy that he had a nickname! Albeit, a really, really goofy one.

Maybe after Gordon explained the situation to him, he’d share that story.

“Sure, Gordon Feetman,” he said instead, keeping his tone light. “Can you let me out? I thought there were supposed to be like, people here to walk me through the whole process, but I’ve been here for at least half an hour and I haven’t seen anyone.”

“Yeah, they’re all uh-” The guard paused, glancing up to one side and smacking his lips. Gordon looked over, but there was nothing there, just the corner of the room. “Headin’ to the Lambda lab. Got all split up, though.”

The Lambda Lab…? Shit, that was the top-secret sector, at the far end of the facility. If they were on their way there, he was really fucking lucky that they got separated and- and-

“Hey, what’s your name?”

The guard looked up at him, smile disappearing. “Yoooo, you forget about me? Best good friend Benrey? Pretty uh… pretty sucks of you.”

Gordon couldn’t stop the snort that left him at Benrey’s weird phrasing. Fortunately Benrey seemed pleased by it. “Yeah, I know, pretty sucks of me. In my defense, I apparently died, so there’s that.”

“Huh?” Benrey looked puzzled now. “Uh, no you didn’t. You’re here, dude.”

Shit. Did only the scientists have access to the cloning program? That was pretty fucked up. “No - I mean, yes, I’m here, but…” He waved a hand, meaning to gesture to himself, and accidentally pushed himself away from the glass, making Benrey disappear from view as he’s obscured by glowing goop. “Fuck. Can you please let me out? It’s really hard to talk through this shit.”

“Oh yeah, sure.” Benrey’s voice faded as he moved away, over in the direction of the consoles. Gordon could hear him muttering, but between the liquid and Benrey’s mumbling, he couldn’t make out the words.

Apparently, the controls weren’t too complicated, because after a moment, a smaller alarm sounded in the room -

And the glass exploded outward.

Gordon fell to the floor of the tube, fortunately shielded from the rain of glass by the thick tube-goo as it flowed out and over him. He coughed a few times, knowing that hey, if he’d been breathing that stuff, it was going to need to come out of his lungs, right?

Or, maybe it was more of Black Mesa’s super secret medical science, because after a few wet hacks, he felt… pretty normal, actually. No worse for the wear, despite the glass everywhere and the goo sticking to him. Even that was slowly sliding off him.

“Why the hell would they make it explode?” he wheezed, coughing a few more times for good measure. “That’s gotta be like, the dumbest way to open a tube!”

“Uh? Yeah, I guess so,” Benrey said, distracted. Gordon glanced up to find the security guard looking him over intently. He pushed himself to his feet, shaking out the odd feeling of weightlessness he’d become used to in the tube.

“How do I look? What’s the damage?”

“Huh?” Benrey’s eyes snapped back to his face. “Uh, no damage. Fresh respawn, right? Even got your…” he gestured to Gordon’s right arm. “Even got your arm back. E-Z, gg.”

“What are you even saying?” Gordon asked. “Did you just say “gg” out loud- no, hold on, more important - what about my arm?”

“You lost it. I dunno, put it down and forgot to pick it up or somethin’. Got all mad about it, but you got it back, so like… no more mad, please? For good friend Benrey?”

God. The way Benrey spoke was… really something else. Clearly he’d missed out on some sort of inside joke or something in the months since the brain-scan, because this shit was tough to parse. Still, he had to set things straight. “Okay, first, I can say - no more mad. I’m not mad, I’m just a little behind on things. Second, I think you may be a little confused about this. I’m not the Gordon Freeman you know.”

Benrey blinked slowly at him. Gordon met his stare eye for eye, noticing the yellowish tinge to his sclera. It almost seemed to glow under the shadow of the helmet. “Uh. If you’re not Feetman, who are you supposed to be?” he finally said. “That’s a- a dumb joke.”

Gordon’s heart sank. Yeah, this was not going to be fun news to break. “I’m sorry, Benrey, it’s not a joke,” he said, trying for gentle. “Black Mesa has a cloning program for the scientists, just in case there’s a lab accident and someone dies. I don’t know what all those alarms are about, but apparently, the original Gordon Freeman… died. I’m just a clone.”

“Clone?” Benrey tilted his head. “You don’t look like Dr. Coomer…”

At least that was a name he recognized - he was supposed to be working with Dr. Coomer on the Xen materials test, though it would be a few months before everything was set up and ready to go. “That’s because I’m not a clone of Dr. Coomer,” he said carefully. “Dr. Coomer has his own clone, but so do the all other scientists. Me included. And we’re only supposed to be like… activated, if something happens to the original.”

Benrey stared at him for a long moment. Gordon stared back. Hopefully, he’d be able to compartmentalize the news. Gordon wasn’t sure how effective he would be comforting him. Between not knowing anything about this guy, and Gordon sharing the same face and memory (sans about six months) as the deceased, he was not the best person for the job.

Benrey tilted his head slightly. “You, uh…” he trailed off, smacking his lips. “You got a passport?”

“A-” A passport? “No, man, I don’t- I’m a clone, I don’t have like, any legal paperwork…”

“Oh. Alright, that checks out then.” Benrey turned towards the door, powerwalking away. Gordon hurried to catch up. “C’mon, we gotta - gotta get to Lambda Labs, meet up with the Science Team and shit.”

“Sure. Hey, are you going to be okay, though? I know it’s a lot to take in.”

Benrey gave him a weird look. “Uh. Yes? I’m not the one who just respawned like a n00b.”

Gordon frowned, trying to figure out how he’d heard the 0’s when Benrey said “noob,” before deciding he didn’t care that much. “I mean, fair. I guess out of the two, dying and realizing you’re a clone is probably the more existentially terrifying of the two.”

“Dr. Coomer does it all the time.”

“Yikes. All the time?” Gordon let out a low whistle. “How dangerous is Anomalous Materials, anyways? I should have read the fine print.”

Benrey grunted in response, though Gordon wasn’t sure whether he was agreeing or not. As they moved out into the hallway, the alarms got louder, and Gordon winced. “What’s the situation, anyways? Those alarms have been driving me crazy.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty shit,” Benrey agreed, looking up at one of the flashing lights with something that could charitably be called a glare. After a moment, to Gordon’s surprise… they stopped. As did the blaring, repeated alarms that had been sounding since Gordon had woken up. Finally, there was sweet, blessed silence.

“Oh my god, dude,” Gordon said, reaching over and grabbing Benrey’s shoulder. He jumped, flinching back at the touch, and Gordon backed off, hands up. “Sorry. Just - did you do that?”

“Huh?”

“The alarm, man. Did you stop it?”

Benrey shrugged. “Yeah, it was real loud,” he said. “And like, everyone already knows everything’s fucked, so why kill our ears too?”

Gordon had no idea what kind of history his deceased counterpart had with this man. He considered himself a fairly affable person, so maybe he had struck up a rapport with Benrey when the guard had been on duty, or maybe they had met on lunch break. Regardless, right now - “Benrey, you are my new favorite person.”

Benrey blinked a few times at that, before a wide, slow smile grew on his face. “For real? Best friend Benrey?”

“Absolutely best friend Benrey,” Gordon said, reaching out to clap him on the shoulder. He was careful to telegraph his movements, and Benrey watched as his hand landed on his shoulder, and stared at it.

Gordon stood there for a long awkward moment as he waited for Benrey to react or respond, but he seemed content to just… stand there. When it started to get unbearably awkward, he squeezed Benrey’s shoulder once, quickly pulling his hand back. “Right! So, you mentioned the Science Team or something…?”

Benrey jolted. “Right, yeah. Uh… this way, I guess.”

While Benrey’s words weren’t particularly comforting, he did move through the facility like he knew the place, which was more than Gordon could say. On top of that, the pristine halls he remembered from his orientation were gone, now - there was rubble and debris everywhere, and some extremely worrying rust-brown stains. No bodies, though, from what Gordon could see.

“Oh, hold up,” Gordon said. Benrey, walking just ahead, froze in place, one leg lifted. He slowly turned in place, barely moving, and Gordon snorted. “Dude, I just meant- you can move, man.”

“Huh? Whu- why we stopping?”

Gordon pointed over to the sign next to the door ahead. “Benrey, that lab has a radiation warning on it.”

“Yeah so?”

“Neither of us are really prepped for that. I think we need to find another route.”

“Huh? No, its cool, I’m not human.”

Gordon gave him a look. “Right. Sure, Benrey, but I,” he gestured to himself, “am but a mere human, and if I go in there, and something has happened to the containment unit in there, I’m gonna get radiation poisoning and like… melt to death. We gotta go a different way.”

“What happened to your uh… hev suit?”

“My what?”

“You know! Your big orange uh… Ayche Eee Vee suit. For the test.”

Gordon frowned. “Benrey, I- you know I’m not the same Gordon, right? I never did any test, I don’t even know what a - hev? Hev suit is.”

“It’s your suit! S’posed to like… protect you from radiation and stuff. I listen,” Benrey insisted, to Gordon’s rising confusion. Still, he wasn’t about to argue with a man grieving for his friend, even if denial was not just a river in Egypt.

“Alright, alright, it was my suit, but I don’t have it anymore.” He paused, a thought coming to mind. “But… they might have something similar around the lab.” There were a few unopened doors lining the hallway, and he headed over to one. “We can search the rooms, see if we can find a - a Hev suit, or something similar. PPE, or whatnot,” he added, starting to mutter to himself. The door was a sliding one, locked with some kind of keycard, but if he could just get a grip on it… “If they’ve got radiation in the labs, they’ve got to have some protective measures around the lab, right? Failsafes, stuff like that.”

“You gonna steal?” Benrey asked, his voice directly in Gordon’s ear. He jumped, stumbling back against the door.

“Jeeze, Benrey!” Gordon wheezed before his brain caught up with what Benrey had asked. He laughed. “Yeah, man, gonna get all crime lord up at work.” Benrey tilted his head in consideration, and Gordon realized that hey, maybe pretending to do a crime around a security guard was a bad idea, even if they were kind of friends? “I mean-”

“Sick,” Benrey declared, reaching past him to flash his guards’ badge. The door opened with a whoosh, Gordon nearly falling flat on his ass as it did. “Gonna go rob a bank after this? Gordon Stealman?”

Gordon snickered. “I’ve leveled up from Gordon Feetman, then?”

“No,” Benrey said, his deadpan voice belied by the sharp grin on his face. Gordon laughed.

“Whatever, Benrey.” He took stock of the room they’d found - an office. “Alright. Time to start searching. Oh!” He turned back to Benrey, clapping his hands together. “If you have a keycard to the other rooms, you should start checking those. If we split up the search, it should go faster.”

“Sure. What are we looking for?”

“The- the radiation suits, man.”

“Right, right…” Benrey smacked his lips. “Just one, though, don’t need no- chicken hat. Got godmode on.”

…Gordon was going to be charitable, and assume Benrey was joking. Maybe a different tact would work better. “I’d feel better if you wore one, though. Do that for me? Best friend Benrey?” 

If Benrey caught on to the fact that Gordon was trying to butter him up, he didn’t show it. Instead, his eyes lit up- oh wait holy shit, they literally lit up. “Yessss best friend Benrey. Gonna go find some ayche eee vee suits. Saw one a bit back, I’ll go find it.”

Then he phased through the wall and disappeared.

Gordon stared after him. “Oh…kay… That just… happened. And there are a bunch of reasonable explanations for how that just happened. Black Mesa is big on technology, maybe they made some sort of… material phase array…” Which sounded pretty stupid as soon as he said it - something like that would give off way too much radiation to be useful at a personal level. Heck, just moving through a wall like that should have incinerated them both.

…Could Benrey really be… not human? And if he wasn’t human… what was he?

Okay, time to compartmentalize. “I will worry about that later,” he announced to himself, clapping his hands together again. “First thing - gotta find some radiation suits.”

Because when it came to radiation, whether Benrey was human or not, Gordon would rather play safe than sorry.


	2. Chapter 2

Gordon’s new clone goof was pretty funny. A lot more fun than him yelling and being angry all the time, anyways. Like, sure, it was fun at first, pushing his buttons and making him yell and stuff, but ever since he lost his arm, he’d been like… really whiny and stuff.

But, now he had his arm back, and he was in a better mood after his little tube-nap or whatever. And Benrey was gonna help him find a new HVAC or whatever suit.

As soon as he could figure out where he was. No-clipping was weird, because once you got inside a thing, you could see all through the rest of it, broken down into flat walls and boxed off rooms. To someone who liked looking at world-maps, this might have been very useful.

To Benrey, however, it just meant there were more places to get sidetracked on his way to the main questline. Which was why he was got distracted messing with some headcrabs, then poking through some stuff in one of the guard break-rooms looking for games, then showing his passport off to one of the non-animated skeletons buried in one of the walls.

Normal guard procedure, obvs.

So he got a little distracted. It’s not like Gordon hadn’t managed to find the rest of the Science Team, and he’d even found his anti-radiation mech suit.

Unfortunately, he seemed to have lost his arm again, which was major sucks, because Benrey hadn’t even been around this time. If he’d known what a whiner Gordon was going to be the first time, he’d have set up baby chicken-hat handicap mode and kept him from losing it.

Well, at least he could offer like, sympathy or something. That was a good move, right? Benrey felt like Tommy had mentioned that at some point, during their “how to talk with people” discussions. He even waited until everyone went to bed so they’d have some privacy.

“Hey, where’d your- what happened to your arm?” he asked, trying to convey all the sincerity he was capable of.

Gordon stared at him for a flat 30 seconds, his lips pressing together in a flat line, tension building in his frame… then it broke, and he sagged like a ragdolled scientist. “You know what? Fuck you, man,” he snapped, jabbing a finger into his face with his remaining hand. “You know exactly what happened.”

“I don’t.” Benrey sang out a line of pale ale like vermouth, for telling the truth. Gordon just shook his head, turning away.

“I fucking hate you, dude,” he said, voice cracking as he walked over to one side of the room. “I’m goin’ to fucking sleep and if you kill me, then whatever. If there’s an afterlife I’m gonna haunt your ass.”

“That’s uh, kinda gay,” Benrey replied, trying hard not to think about how Gordon and his ass might interact. “Thought we were best buddies, best friends Gordo and Benrey…”

Gordon barked out a laugh, not seeming to care if he woke the others up. “Well, you thought fucking wrong. I’m going to bed.”

He sunk down against the wall, leaving Benrey standing alone among them. Well, fine. If Gordon didn’t want him around, Benrey would fuck around somewhere else until he stopped being a little bitch. He glanced over at the skeleton, which stood up at his thought, and took a seat on one of the few remaining unexploded crates in the area. It would keep watch while the rest slept and Benrey got his head back together.

He no-clipped away, keeping an eye on the facility at large. They weren’t too far from the goal, now. The portal to Xen was in the Lambda lab, and they’d probably get there next time everyone was awake. Benrey had insisted Gordon have his passport on him, but nooooooo - didn’t listen to some security guard, mr. Sciencedon Meanman was too good for him. Was gonna make Xen a lot harder for everybody…

Huh. He thought Gordon had been sleeping with everyone else.

“Hey you stealing stuff?” he asked as he no-clipped into one of the facility hallways. Gordon jumped, dropping something and spinning around with one hand clasped over his chest.

The other was reaching out between them. Huh. Two hands again. They must grow back faster than he thought.

“JEE-ZUS Benrey!” Gordon panted, relaxing a little. “You scared the shit out of me! Where the hell did you go, I’ve been looking for you!”

“You just saw me.”

“Yeah, like, an hour ago when we split up! Did you find the other HEV suit?” He gestured to himself, and Benrey took the opportunity to give him a thorough once-over as Gordon kept talking.

What? It was a nice view. Even if the weird skinsuit was now covered by orange, mechanical plating.

“I found this one in one of the labs. Thankfully, the door was already open, since I couldn’t find you.” He fiddled with one of the plates. “From the notes, it looks like it’s a prototype or something, but it should still be good against lighter radiation.”

It definitely looked like a prototype. What Gordon had been wearing before had been the super new, top-secret version of the HEV suit. Sparkling bright warning orange, polished Black Mesa insignia, and ultimate radiation protection.

This, on the other hand, looked like someone had taken a gray jumpsuit and hot-glued cosplay armor onto it. But, Gordon was looking expectantly at him.

Oh shit, right, he’d asked a question, and Benrey was here just staring at him. Uhhhh…

“Oh. No, I didn’t find the suit. You should’ve kept your old one, I could have worn that.”

Gordon gave him an odd look. “I mean… sure, but my old suit was just the tube skinsuit. Not radiation-proof at all.”

“No, not the tube-suit, the-” Benrey cut himself off, singing out a line of overlapping black and white orbs. [Optical illusion, suffering from confusion] Gordon took a step back, looking up at them.

“Whoa,” he breathed, wide-eyed. “That’s - what is that?”

Benrey looked up at the orbs, slowly floating away. Black and white, an optical illusion - help me, I’m suffering confusion. “’S the Black Mesa Sweet Voice, dude,” he said. Gordon still looked confused, which was weird.

“So… is that a - a not being human thing, or a Black Mesa thing, or…” he trailed off, then smacked his forehead. “Shit. Sorry, that was like, the worst way to ask that. Going back a step - you said you weren’t human, right? So are you like… a cryptid, or an alien?”

Finally, an easy question from Gordon Smartyman. “I’m an alien.”

“Okay. Okay!” Gordon took a deep breath, and Benrey stiffened imperceptibly. He was familiar with that breath. That usually came right before Gordon snapped at something totally chill.

To his surprise, Gordon let out his breath in one long, slow sigh. “Alright. That is… a lot to process, but also good to know. And pretty cool.” He glanced back down the hallway, to the door with the radiation signs plastered to either side. “And you’re… positive you won’t be affected by radiation…?”

“Yeah, man, I got like… all sorts of godmode. Little radios can’t hurt this!” he bragged. Gordon snorted, and he grinned.

“Alright, that’s… not really how radiation works, but you’ve got the idea, at least,” Gordon chuckled. He reached down, picking up the item he’d dropped earlier - an orange helmet, to match the rest of his suit.

“Well, I’m suited up and you’re impervious,” he said, putting the helmet on. It latched into place with a hiss, briefly obscuring Gordon’s face before the glass cleared to show his grin. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

Benrey led him through the next section of the labs. It wasn’t a quick trip - Benrey wasn’t Coomer, he lacked the perfect memory-map the cybernetic scientist had. He also wasn’t Bubby, so the puzzles they came across were more or less inscrutable to him.

Fortunately, Gordon seemed to have little problem with them. Just went to show how much more you can get done when you’re not busy yelling at your best friend instead of solving things!

“Hey, Benrey,” Gordon called, staring at one such puzzle. Benrey hopped off the table he’d been sitting on, moseying over and taking in the room. This lab featured - an side room with huge glass windows, a table, a large metal arm with a blade, and a huge metal ventilation fan with no cover.

If he understood more about the fragility of human bodies, he might have realized that this was a terrible setup for a room, what with the very real risk of being drawn in and crushed or mangled by the fan. As it was, Benrey was used to the absurd construction of Black Mesa’s labs. “Yeah?”

Gordon pointed to the console, which was an illegible field of blinking lights, as far as Benrey could tell. “This looks like it connects to a set of antechamber doors on the far side of the fan’s ventilation shaft, and it needs to be open in order for the fan to stop so we can move through. Unfortunately,” he added, gesturing to another set of lights and buttons, “these indicators are showing that the manual override inside the maintenance channel is active, meaning I can’t open them remotely.”

“Sounds like bad level design. Softlocked, bro.”

“Yeah, terrible design,” Gordon agreed with a chuckle. “You can phase through stuff, right?”

“Phase?”

“Yeah, like… when you move through the wall like it’s not there.”

“Oh. That’s my no-clip, bro.”

Gordon snorted a laugh. “Benrey, I ask this as best buds - did you learn all your earthly vocabulary listening to video game streamers, or what?”

“…some of it,” he admitted. Sure, it wasn’t the most scientific lingo, but he liked it and it made sense to him.

“That makes sense. So, your no-clip - think you can go through the wall to the maintenance channel and hit that manual override?”

Benrey looked at him, then over at the fan, lazily but lethally spinning in place, and was suddenly struck by the desire to show off a little more. “Uh actually, I got a better idea,” he told Gordon, and walked towards the fan. He ignored Gordon’s curious, then cautionary calls from behind him. He was gonna show Gordon that he had other cool powers, not just no-clipping or phasing or whatever.

As the first fan blade collided with him, knocking him down and crushing his body, his first thought was “Whoops. Forgot godmode.”

His last thought before this iteration of his body gave out, listening to Gordon’s alarmed shouting, was that this was the second time Gordon had cared when he died.

He blinked, and the image of Gordon kneeling over him, terrified, vanished, replaced by a dark hallway. He flexed his fingers, feeling the newly covered bones crack as he resettled into the skeleton he’d left behind.

“Great. Benrey’s back.”

He turned to see Gordon, wearing his fancier HEV suit again, staring down the hallway at him with a look of absolute disgust. The Science Team stood behind him, Dr. Coomer and Tommy brightly waving to him, while Bubby just looked at him with narrowed eyes.

Huh. Gordon had lost his hand again. He didn’t think he’d been despawned for that long, he still felt pretty fresh… but it must have been a while if Gordon had found the time to track down the Science Team and lose his hand again.

“Hey, little clumsy boy, lost your hand there, didja?” he asked, and watched Gordon’s face turn bright red in absolute rage.

“Fuck you,” he spat, storming past, being sure to shoulder-check Benrey as he did. Benrey rolled with the movement, pivoting on one foot and watching as Gordon staggered on.

“Hi Benrey!” Tommy said as the rest of the Science Team followed. “I was wondering where you got to!”

“…was just tryin’ to be nice, what’s Feetman’s problem?” Benrey grumbled, more to himself than Tommy. Still, Tommy picked it up, and winced.

“Well he’s- he’s still pretty sore about losing his hand, Benrey. You should maybe… maybe try not to bring it up so much?”

Benrey could do that. It would be easier not to ask then to ask, anyway, and if Gordon wanted to keep losing his hand in stupid ways and growing it back, then that was his problem.

Huh. Gordon was always in a better mood when he had his hand back. Benrey perked up.

He just had to wait until it grew back. Then they’d be back to best buds again.

So he waited. And while he waited, Gordon got mad at him. A lot.

Then Gordon drank a whole potion to help his arm grow back, and grew this awesome sick minigun instead.

And then he immediately tested it on Benrey’s face, which was less awesome sick, and also hurt like, a whole fuckton. And Benrey didn’t have to take that, so he wandered off.

He made his way down a few hallways, opting to take the scenic route - now that they were closer to the more secured levels, there were more things creeping around, and he took out some of his stress chasing off Xen creatures that were considering heading back towards the Science Team.

‘See, Feetman?’Benrey thought to himself. ‘Even when you’re being a jerk, I’m still a neat-cool, helpin’ out my bros.’

There was gunfire ahead, probably more of the military or other security guards, if he had to guess. Then someone screamed, and he realized it wasn’t _either._

He hurried down the corridor, rounding the corner just in time to see Gordon grand slam a headcrab into the wall with a crowbar. It hit the wall with a loud thud, sliding to the ground and twitching.

“Holy shit,” Gordon panted, carefully creeping over to it. He reached out with the crowbar, poking it gently and flinching back when it spasmed, nerves still active despite being effectively dead. “What the fuck…”

“Why’re you using a crowbar?” Just like before, Gordon jumped about a foot, whirling around with the crowbar at the ready.

“ _MOTHERF-_ Benrey!” Gordon stared at him, wide-eyed, then lurched forward. Benrey took a step back, unsure, then froze when he heard the crowbar clatter to the ground, two big, dad-bod arms wrapping around him as he was swept up in a hug.

Literally swept up. Gordon had his feet off the ground. Holy Shit, and Benrey thought his gay little crush could not get any worse.

“Holy _fuck_ , man, I thought you were _dead!_ ” Gordon’s voice was Way Too Loud, but that could have been just because it was coming from the vicinity of Right Next To Benrey’s Head. Or because he was… uh…

“Bro, are you crying?” Crying wasn’t a good thing. Gordon had _never_ cried, he usually shouted and huffed and laughed. Crying was _way_ off base.

“Shut up,” Gordon laughed, pulling away and definitely wiping something away from his eyes. Despite his words, though, he was smiling. He swallowed back some Sweet Voice. “You can’t give me shit, you got crushed by a fan. _Deliberately_. What the hell did you think you were even doing?”

“Forgot to put on Godmode, man. I was still in survival, forgot my… my haxx,” he mumbled.

“Your haxx?” Gordon repeated, puzzled.”Is that another… alien thing?”

“No.” It was a Benrey thing, as far as he knew. Gordon waited for a moment, and Benrey realized that he was waiting for him to elaborate at the same time Gordon figured that he wasn’t planning to.

“Okay. I’ll assume it’s a you thing and not a Black Mesa thing, then,” he said. “Don’t want to get the idea that _I_ should stop a fan with my body or anything. Can you promise me something?”

“Yes?”

Gordon rested his hands back on Benrey’s shoulders, leaning in. Benrey’s eyes widened, and Gordon met him gaze for gaze.

“ _Don_ _’t_ ,” he enunciated, quiet but firm, “forget again, okay? I don’t want to watch you die twice, even if you _are_ gonna come back.”

Benrey swallowed awkwardly, his throat clicking as a sickeningly saccharine cocktail of Sweet Voice choked him up. There was definitely something he could say here, something that would help unlock Gordon Feetman Good End, he just had to _say_ it.

Instead, he opened his mouth and said “Yo then why are you always so mean to me?”

Gordon blinked at him, brow furrowing as he pulled back a little. “Mean…? Benrey, I’m not trying to be _mean_ , I’m just _worried._ ”

“Yeah, okay, maybe _now_ but like… back there with the Science Team you were all, mleh mleh, fuk u Benny, rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat, shootin’ me in the face. Sucks…”

“The Science Team?” Gordon echoed, and then the rest of the sentence hit. “Benrey, someone shot you in the _face?!_ ”

“ _You_ did, bein’ all… pissy about your arm!” Benrey tapped Gordon’s right hand, resting on his shoulder. “You even grew it back and all, so why you so mad?”

“Grew it- Benrey, humans don’t _grow_ arms _back_ ,” Gordon said incredulously.

“Then why you have yours again?”

Frustration briefly crossed Gordon’s face, then resignation. “Benrey…” He sighed. “Bud, I’m… I’m not the original Gordon, remember? I’m a _clone_ , I never lost my arm.”

Benrey narrowed his eyes at him, tilting his head slightly. “Then why didn’t you have your arm back there?”

“I wasn’t- Wait. Wait, hold on.” Gordon made his thinking face, and Benrey waited, watching impatiently as Gordon puzzled out whatever had occurred to him. “Benrey,” he said slowly. “Have you seen… _me_ … without an arm, since you let me out of that tube?”

“Yeah? With everyone else?”

“And when was the _last_ time you saw me without an arm?”

He had to think about that for a moment. “Uh… an hour ago? Back in the lab where you sucked down that dude’s barrel?”

“Where I _what_?” Gordon barked, half laughter, half shock.

“Drank the powerade potion, grew your sick mini-gun arm. Then you had two arms again.” Benrey frowned. “Then you shot me in the face.”

Gordon winced at that. “I mean… that wasn’t _me_ , but I’m sorry that happened.”

“Pushing the blame on someone else? Not cool, bro.”

“No, I’m not - Benrey,” he said, exasperated. “Look, I think I know what’s going on. Can you lead me back to where you last saw me, before you found me here?”

Benrey shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” He reluctantly stepped back, Gordon’s hands falling from his shoulders, and turned back the way he came. “I already cleared out the headcrabs and stuff. You’re welcome,” he added.

“Is that what those things are called?” Benrey could hear a slight clatter as Gordon retrieved his crowbar, then hurried to catch up. “What are they doing here?”

“I dunno. Lots of little holes to… to somewhere else. They came through. Started snacking on the big brains here.”

“That’s…” Gordon eyed a scientist’s body as they passed it, covered in blood and gore, face obscured by a now deceased headcrab. “Terrifying.”

“Eh.”

“You said they came from somewhere else?”

Benrey didn’t respond, singing a line of brownish-red instead [medium rare, don’t really care].

“That’s not really an answer-” one of the bubbles floated down, catching Gordon off-guard, and it popped in his face. “Oh. Huh.”

“Whuh?”

“Oh, I… was about to ask you where they came from, but now I’m… Eh. Not important, I guess.”

“Yeah, they’re here so it’s whatever.”

Gordon didn’t have anything else to add to that, so they walked in relative silence, though Benrey let out the odd Sweet Voice melody. Nothing that had any meaning, really, just some colors and sounds.

“You have a nice voice,” Gordon said idly. Benrey cut off a stream of Sweet Voice with a choked sound.

“Ugh, kkh- that’s uh, kinda gay,” he finally coughed out.

“Only half gay,” Gordon teased. “I’m bi, dude.”

“Oh shit, really? Equal, uh, opportunity employer?”

That set Gordon off on another bought of laughter, which was… nice. It was nice. Unfortunately, up ahead, he could hear the tell-tale sounds of chaos that preceded the Science Team, which meant Gordon was going to go back to being mean again. Gordon quieted down as they approached, looking excited and… nervous?

“Did you guys hear that?” Gordon’s voice asked from around the corner, before Gordon, sans-hand-with-minigun-and-fancy-radio-suit, rounded the corner after it. And stopped. And stared.

Benrey stared back, then slowly turned to look at the Gordon with-a-hand standing next to him, who was also staring. Everyone was staring. He went back to staring at Gordon without-a-hand-with-a-minigun, and then Gordon with-a-hand again.

Oh, shit.

He actually _was_ a clone?

Gordon with-hand-and-less-fancy-microwave-suit finally broke the silence, taking a small step forward and giving Gordon without-a-hand an awkward wave. “Uh, hi. Good to see you alive, man.”


	3. Chapter 3

Gordon stared as this… _look-alike_ slowly lowered his hand, his eyes sweeping over Gordon, taking in his sorry state. “Alright,” he said slowly, eyes lingering on Gordon’s minigun arm. “So, that explains a lot.”

“Does it?” Gordon asked in a strangled voice.

Benrey, at least, looked as confused about the whole thing as Gordon felt. He kept looking at this new… look-alike, then back at Gordon, then back to the look-alike again, his expression that of someone who was absolutely lost on what was happening. “Wh- why are there two of you?”

Yeah, Gordon was wondering that himself, but before he had a chance to ask, he heard the rest of the Science Team walking up behind him. “Hello Gor- Ah, a Clone!” Dr. Coomer declared. Gordon glanced over just in time to see Dr. Coomer winding up his guns for a punch and jumped into action.

“No!” He jumped between Dr. Coomer and the other Gordon, who gave him a confused look. “No, Dr. Coomer, no we are _not_ killing him!”

The old scientist paused, fists still raised. “B- b-”

“Look, if you want to kill _your_ clones indiscriminately, be my guest, but I am _not_ about to watch someone kill me _in front of me._ Not after everything else!”

Dr. Coomer’s fists lowered, just by a millimeter, then dropped. “Ah! I see! You want to do the deed yourself. Gordon, I support you!”

Gordon lifted his arms to gesture, then dropped them helplessly. “No. Dr. Coomer, I’m not going to kill him! He’s _me_ , that’s fucked up! I don’t want to think about me dying, even if it is him!”

Coomer took a moment to process that, then nodded sagely. “Understood. I’ll do it when your back is turned then!”

Gordon threw his head back with a groan. “No! No, you are _not_ going to kill him when my back is turned! We’re going to talk to him like _normal people_ , and try to figure out what the _fuck_ is going on, and _you will not murder me in front of me or behind me or anywhere else!_ ” He tried for a stern glare, which Dr. Coomer bore with his usual cheery-but-blank expression. Frankly, that was the best he could hope for, so he turned to level it at Bubby as well. “That goes for you too, Bubby!”

“Why are you looking at me?” Bubby complained. “Tommy’s the one with the itchy trigger finger!”

“Yeah, Tommy’s _also_ the one who dragged my ass out of tubs of radioactive waste and got me to a med station when I was bleeding out earlier, so forgive me if I give him a _little_ more credit for “Keeping Gordons Alive.””

Bubby just sneered at that, crossing his arms and glaring away. He thought he caught the test-tube scientist mutter an “ungrateful” under his breath, but he was going to be the bigger man and choose to ignore it. He had bigger questions right now.

He turned back towards his- his clone, he guessed, and found him standing just behind Benrey, edging away as Dr. Coomer edged closer. The moment he turned, however, Dr. Coomer straightened from his fighting stance, smiling brightly. “Hello, Gordon!”

“Hello, Dr. Coomer.” Gordon could feel exhaustion in every syllable. “I’m not going to be able to let you out of my sight around him, am I?”

“No!”

“Great.” Add another task to the list of things he needed to do while babysitting three grown-ass men and one alien. He couldn’t worry about it now, though. He needed to figure out this new fresh hell Black Mesa had thrown at him. He turned his attention to his clone. “Okay, so first question - who are you?”

His clone hesitated for a moment, eyes lingering on Dr. Coomer, who was smiling with everything in his face except his eyes. When the doctor made no more moves to try and punch him, though, he looked back to Gordon. “I’m Gordon Freeman 2.0, I guess. I just woke up in a tank about… I dunno, two hours ago, maybe three? I _think_ I’m part of the mandatory employee backup program, but to be honest, I haven’t been able to find anything in the computer banks, so that’s just a guess. Last thing I remember before all this though is going in to get my brain-scan taken for the program, so I figure it’s a solid guess.”

God, that was _weird_. This guy sounded like him, talked like him… even _looked_ like him, even without the glasses and ponytail. If Dr. Coomer felt like this every time he saw a clone, Gordon could… empathize with that. He still didn’t want to see his clone _dead,_ though.

“You were in a tube?” Bubby popped up next to Gordon, leaning in to scrutinize the clone more closely. “Hm. You definitely smell like it.”

“Shit, do I smell? I didn’t notice.”

Bubby scoffed. “Of course you wouldn’t, you don’t have superior olfactory systems like I do. How’d you get out of your tube?”

“Benrey found me,” his clone said, patting the security guard on the shoulder in an- an almost… an almost _friendly_ way? “He recognized me, let me out of my tube, and told me that you guys were heading for the Lambda Lab.”

“Gordon, at this rate we’ll never reach the Lambda Lab if we don’t get a move on!” Dr. Coomer added.

“We can walk and talk,” Gordon said, giving Dr. Coomer a suspicious look. The group started walking again, and Gordon was careful to keep Dr. Coomer on one side and his clone on the other. Benrey was also sticking close-by to his clone, which was a mixed bag. Benrey usually wasn’t outright threatening to the Science Team, but this clone was an outlier. On the other hand, if Benrey was there, Dr. Coomer would have a harder time sneaking up and killing him. “So then what, you thought it would be a good idea to meet up with yourself?”

“Until about 20 minutes ago, I thought you were dead,” his clone said frankly. “I mean, the dossier I remember said clones were only activated when the original died.”

“Blatantly false information! Gordon, we should-”

“Dr. Coomer, we’re not killing him!” Gordon said, exasperated. Bubby, thank god, intervened, pulling Dr. Coomer a little ways away from the rest of the group. Gordon caught a mutter of “Are you alright, Dr. Coomer?” before their voices became too faint to make out. Tommy fell back from his position at the point to join the rest of the group.

“Is he… is he serious about killing me?” Gordon’s clone asked, looking warily after Dr. Coomer. Gordon sighed.

“Maybe? He’s got a whole… thing about clones.”

“That’s because his clones work a lot different than the standard ones!” Tommy piped up. “His are uh - part of a larger experimental process, so there’s a lot of… there’s some weird stuff, so it makes sense that he doesn’t like living clones a lot. B-but we’ve known how to do regular cloning for a while, so it’s- it’s a very different process, and you just get a copy of the person.” He leaned in, reaching one hand past Gordon to his clone, and Gordon fell back a little. “My name’s Tommy!”

His clone returned the handshake. “Nice to meet you, Tommy, I’m…” His eyes flicked over to Gordon for a second, then back. “Gordon Feetman, I guess?”

“You’re _what,_ ” Gordon deadpanned, just as Benrey cracked up on the other side of his clone. He glared at him. “ _You._ What the _fuck_ did you tell him?”

“Huh, whuh?” Benrey snickered, pretending to wipe away a non-existent tear from laughing. “I just told him about your real cool nickname, bro.”

“It’s _not_ \- No. You know what? Not dealing with you right now.” He took his clone by the shoulder, pulling him in and away from Benrey. “Sorry, he’s a fucking anomaly. I don’t know what he told you, but I can guarantee a lot of it is either a lie or absolute gibberish.”

“…alright,” his clone agreed, more slowly than Gordon would have liked. “So, he told me you lost your arm, which was what I thought had killed you. When he mentioned the rest of the Science Team, I figured I should regroup with them. I only realized you might be alive when he mentioned me _shooting him_ in the _face_ with a machine gun that I apparently had instead of an arm. But I’m glad to hear that _that_ _’s_ a lie.”

Well. Shit. Yeah, that didn’t sound very good when said out loud, huh?

“I mean… he can’t _die_ , though.”

His clone raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure he can, I saw him do it.”

“Yeah, but not like,” he gestured broadly, then stopped when he remembered the gun arm. “Not, not _permanently_ , you know?”

“Still hurts, bro,” Benrey said.

“You know what else fucking hurts, Benrey? Bleeding out because some boot-boys sawed your fucking arm off!”

“Uh, Dr. Feetman,” Tommy interjected, stopping Benrey from replying with some inane comeback, “Is it okay if we call you that, or is there another name we could use? S-since Gordon is still around, it might be confusing to call you _both_ Gordon.”

“Oh, are we renaming the clone?” Dr. Coomer asked as he returned to the group with Bubby. “I vote we name him Boper, after Chief Security Officer Boper!”

“Glad you’re no longer on the clone killing team, Dr. Coomer. And wasn’t Boper just one of Benrey’s nicknames?”

“Don’t be silly, Gordon! Chief Security Officer Boper died tragically being crushed by a door, and toilets! I miss him Every Day! Also, if the clone steps out of line I will destroy him with absolute prejudice!”

“Noted, Dr. Coomer,” Clone Gordon said. Dr. Coomer smiled.

“Excellent!”

“We can’t call him Boper,” Bubby said.

“We could- you could be named Pibb!” Tommy suggested. Gordon laughed, and was surprised when his clone did as well.

“What, like the soda?” his clone said. “I mean, there are better sodas to be named after.”

“Yeah, but like… the best ones are already taken!”

“Taken by who? Also-” he gestured to the group. “I know most of your names now - Benrey, Gordon, obviously, Tommy, and Dr. Coomer.” He turned to Bubby. “What’s your name?”

“Bubby.”

There was a beat. “That’s… not a name.”

“That’s what I said!” Gordon whooped, throwing his hand (and gun muzzle) up. “Thank you!”

Bubby scowled at both of them. “It _is_ a name, it’s _my_ name!”

“Oh, well, that’s fair,” Gordon’s clone said, smiling. “In that case, I’ll be Bonzales.”

Bubby scowled. “That’s not a name!”

“Bonzales is a name from Portugal!” Dr. Coomer said. The rest of them turned towards him expectantly. He stared right back at them. “What?”

“Is… usually you only use that voice when you start a Wikipedia rant,” Gordon said.

“Ah! Well, Wikipedia did not _have_ an article on Bonzales. And now that we’ve destroyed it, it never will!”

On the other side of Feetman-Boper-Pibb-Bonzales, Benrey sang a high note, spitting out some random colors. “Bonzaaaaaaales. Bonnie-z. The Bonbon.”

“Dude, I was joking,” Feetman-Boper-Pibb-Bonzales chuckled, nudging him with his elbow. Gordon looked away, fighting a frown when he remembered something.

“You could be Alec,” he said. It was weird, but when he’d been a kid, he’d had a few years where he’d really hated his name - some bully had called him Gor-dong _once,_ and it had stuck the rest of the year. He’d wanted another name so badly, and he’d tried to get people to call him Alec instead, but it never worked out. Fortunately, the other kids eventually got over his name, and he’d gotten over his bad memories of it, and he’d gone back to being Gordon. He still thought that Alec was a pretty cool name, though, and if this clone shared his memories, like the employee backup clones were supposed to, he’d think the same.

“Oh yeah… Alec works!”

“Mmmm nope,” Benrey said, popping the ‘p’ with an obnoxious smack. “’s Bonbon now, got it on your official paperwork, everything’s stamped and finalized.”

Gordon could feel his face heat as his blood pressure rose. “Dude,” he started to growl, but his clone - rather, Alec - put a hand up to stop him.

“Alright, Benrey can call me Bonbon, everyone else can call me Alec. Sound good?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Alec!” Tommy said, grinning.

“Yes yes, very nice. So now that we’ve got that sorted out, can we keep moving?” Bubby asked, gesturing to the hallway ahead of them. “Some of us would like to get out of this place sometime this century!”

“Sounds good to me,” Alec and Gordon said simultaneously, before sharing a weird look.

“I hope that doesn’t happen a lot,” Gordon said, starting to walk. Alec nodded.

“Yeah, not a fan of being the kids in ‘The Shining’ or anything.”

“Well, the good news is, since you’re only the same up until your last brain scan, you two should start diverging in personality pretty soon!” Tommy added helpfully.

“Given there’s up to six months of experiential difference between us, plus -” Alec paused to wave his hand at the general state of the place, “ _whatever_ the hell is happening right now, I’d say that’s already started.”

“Are you all going to drag your feet and gossip forever, or are you actually going to get a move on?” Bubby called from further down the hallway. “I’ve already solved the next room! You’re welcome!”

Gordon rolled his eyes. “Sorry - _someone_ gets cranky when he doesn’t get his way,” he told Alec, picking up the pace.

“Can’t say I blame him,” Alec replied. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

They moved pretty quickly for a while after that. Gordon worried at first that Alec might not mesh with the team - they didn’t have the best track record with clones, after all, and he did have to keep an eye on Dr. Coomer. The older scientist was still giving Alec the occasional thoughtful look, with the thought _clearly_ being one of violence.

But Bubby, after his initial prickliness, seemed to be bonding with him over being tube-babies and solving puzzles that Gordon was too tired/injured/concussed to deal with, and Tommy was being his usual friendly self.

It also helped to have someone who actually _listened_ to him. Gordon sort of considered himself the leader of this wild crew, despite the fact that he had little-to-no control over them, because he generally herded them along and kept them from getting caught up in things like killing moths. Alec was easier to keep on track, maybe because he was so much like Gordon, or maybe because he had taken one look at Gordon and felt some pity for him. Either way, he was supporting Gordon’s leadership, which was a nice change of pace, even with Bubby’s toothless but steady accusations of nepotism.

The wildest part was, even _Benrey_ was behaving around Alec, which was both surprising and surprisingly annoying. For all intents and purposes, they were the same person, up until six months ago when Gordon started working at Black Mesa, so he’d expected Benrey to pull the same shit on Alec that he had on Gordon. But the two of them seemed to be getting along just fine. Benrey didn’t harass him all the time for stupid shit like that _passport_ , and stuck by him during fights and the usual explosive Science Team shenanigans. And when he _did_ say something stupid or inane, Alec just laughed it off. Benrey apparently liked that, and so the whole arrangement had the pleasant side-effect of Benrey not bugging Gordon as much, which was frankly a godsend.

He just… wasn’t really comfortable with how buddy-buddy his clone was with the guy who was _responsible_ for his _arm_ getting cut off.

When they eventually came to the decision that it was time to rest, Dr. Coomer surprised the group by coming over to Gordon and Alec.

“Hello, Gordons!” he said, clapping them both on the shoulder (thankfully, Gordon’s _left_ shoulder). Alec winced and stumbled, and Gordon winced sympathetically. Thank god for the HEV suit. “I owe you an apology! Tommy has been explaining to me the finer details of the employee backup program, and it is Quite Different from my own hivemind experience! Alec, welcome to the Science Team. I promise I won’t try to Kill You in your Sleep!”

“Thanks, Dr. Coomer,” Alec replied after a beat. Dr. Coomer gave them another firm shoulder-pat, then went to find a comfy spot to ragdoll for the night. Gordon was ready to follow him (he was _not_ about to get stuck sleeping on the worst, grossest part of the floor again!) when Alec stopped him.

“Hey, can we… talk, for a moment?” He tilted his head slightly, back towards one of the side-rooms in the adjoining hallway.

“What’s up?” Gordon asked as he walked into the room. He turned to see Alec going to close the door. His heart jumped to his throat. “Don’t-!”

Alec froze, looking over at him in surprise, and Gordon stared right back, trying to quell the spike of panic that had inspired in him. When he didn’t elaborate, Alec just… quietly stepped away from the door.

“Sorry,” Gordon finally said after a moment. “Just…” He gestured to the room with his mini-gun arm, letting out a laugh he hoped was convincing. “Enclosed spaces, you know?”

“Oh shit. Yeah, that would do it. Sorry, man.”

“So.” Gordon sat himself down on one of the desks. “What’s up? You holding up alright?”

Alec stared at him incredulously. Well, one benefit of talking to his clone was that he recognized all his own facial expressions, so this would probably be a walk in the park. “Am _I_ holding up alright?” he parroted. “Are _you_?”

Oh. Well, shit. Hm. Was it worth it trying to lie to someone who was literally himself?

“As well as I can be, I guess,” Gordon said slowly. “Nothing about this is a picnic, but-”

“Dude, don’t bullshit me,” Alec said, cutting him off. “We both went through the same thesis hell, _and_ the divorce, _and_ all the other garbage leading up to that. I know what we look like stressed, and you are _so many miles further out_.” He threw his hands out to the side. “I want to help. Talk to me, I’m _literally_ you minus like, 6 months of having to deal with all of this!”

“Yeah, but _you_ had to deal with all that, then woke up to find that the world has gone to hell and you’re not even like, you!” Gordon shot back. “That’s an existential _nightmare_ , man! I at least had people to work through the whole alien invasion thing, you were on your own!”

Alec opened his mouth to argue - and Gordon had been right, he could tell exactly what Alec was about to do just by his expression- then stopped, and stared laughing instead.

“Are we seriously measuring dicks arguing that the _other_ Gordon has it worse?” Gordon let that sink in for a moment.

“We… kinda are?” he said, joining in with a chuckle.

“God, we’ve got some kind of self-esteem problem,” Alec said, shaking his head. “But seriously - even if we take everything into account, I popped out of a tube fresh and healthy, and I’ve wandered around for maybe a few hours tops, fought off a few small aliens, hung out with one friendly one, and met myself and myself’s friends. That’s pretty minor compared to - being caught in a reactor explosion, swimming through sewage, fighting sharks and apes and aliens and the military, _losing your arm_ , and, and I quote - “sucked down some dude’s barrel” to grow a machine gun instead of an arm. And that’s just the stuff I could get Tommy and Bubby to tell me about.”

“”Sucked d-?” fucking Benrey said that, didn’t he.”

“He has a way with words,” Alec said wryly. Gordon shook his head.

“Don’t fucking say it like _that_ , it’s not clever! He’s either being an ass or he’s completely oblivious!”

“He is pretty spacey, and I actually want to come back around to that too, but we’re getting off topic.” Alec clapped his hands together, pointing them at Gordon. “How are _you_ holding up?”

Gordon’s shoulders sagged in resignation. “How the fuck do you think?”

“Yeah, that about confirms my suspicions. Do you want to talk about it?”

He did. _God,_ he did, and to have someone offer, to dangle that opportunity in front of him… especially to someone he knew would _listen_ , who would understand where he was coming from, was _so tempting_.

But he also knew himself. If he couldn’t compartmentalize this away, if he started to break now… there was too much behind the floodgates, and they were _so close_ to getting out of here.

Alec was still waiting for an answer, and Gordon knew that he wouldn’t take a simple “no,” because if _he_ saw someone in his position, he wouldn’t have taken “no” either. “I.. I’d like that,” he said instead. “But, I’m afraid if I do, it’s… it’s all gonna come out, and I can’t afford to be losing it now. We’re so close to getting out of here, I’m worried that if I start I’m not gonna be able to stop, and I can’t hold us all up here.”

Alec sighed, and walked over to sit on the desk across from his. “I get that,” he said. “I thought that might be the case, but I still wanted to let you know I’m here if you need to vent.”

“Oh, I _always_ need to vent!” Gordon replied, and that set both of them off, laughing until they were wheezing. It was a silly thing to laugh at, but it was also the first thing he’d laughed about in days that wasn’t hysteria or surprise or panic, and Gordon relished the feeling.

“Gotta keep up that running commentary, huh?” Alec said when they finally started getting their breath back.

“Yeah! How else am I gonna keep my thoughts in order?”

“This might be redundant to say, but same here.” He smiled, then turned more somber. “I did want to talk to you about something else, too. Related, but more specific.”

“Sure, man, what- oh. Benrey.”

“Yeah, that’s about how I thought you might react.”

“Is he giving you shit? I can tell him to fuck off, no promises that he’ll listen but he might-”

“Actually, he’s not. He’s been… weird, but nice. I wanted to talk about how you treat him.”

“How- sorry, how _I_ treat _him?_ ”

“Yeah.” Gordon waited for Alec to laugh or give some sort of tell, but he was genuinely serious. “Before we caught up with you guys, he told me something pretty alarming. You shot him in the face?”

“…how much did Tommy tell you about the arm thing?”

“That Bubby and Benrey tried to sell you out to the bootboys, and they cut your arm off. And you’re deflecting.”

“I’m not!” Gordon protested. “He is responsible for getting my arm cut off!”

“Alright. Did you shoot Bubby in the face too?”

“Wh- I-” he stumbled over a few aborted sentences, before finally arriving at “…no.”

Alec sighed. “I don’t have to say anything about that, right?”

“Okay, Bubby apologized, for one! Kind of… He got tricked, he didn’t know they were going to take my arm, he just thought they needed the suit.”

“He still handed you over to a bunch of soldiers, who have been trying to kill you for days!”

“But he didn’t know! Meanwhile, fucking _Benrey_ was laughing it up, talking about how I was going to be _dead!_ ” He stood up, too agitated now to sit any longer, and started to pace. “Everything has gone downhill _since I fucking met him._ It was _supposed_ to be an easy, if very radioactive, experiment, and then he shows up, badgering me about a _fucking **passport**_ , follows me around everywhere, messes around with the experiment, then just keeps hounding me everywhere! Have you heard the sort of shit he says? It’s infuriating!”

“It’s mostly just random observations.”

“He’s always insulting me or saying dumb shit, and he doesn’t fucking know when to _stop!_ ” Gordon snapped. They both jumped when his mini-gun arm went off, a few rounds embedding themselves into the floor before he caught himself and stopped clenching his fist. “Fuck! Fuck, sorry, I’m just…” He ran his good hand through his hair, pressing the palm against his temple. “God, he makes me so _mad!_ ”

Alec gave him a moment to collect himself, speaking up again when his breathing had evened out a little. “Can I say something?”

“You say that like I’m not gonna like it.”

“You aren’t.” Gordon sighed, and leaned against a wall, sliding to the ground.

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“I don’t think it’s him.”

Gordon’s head snapped to Alec. “Are you saying _I_ _’m-?_ ”

“No, man, hear me out. From what you said, you were already under _so_ much pressure. You’re six months into what was a dream job for us. You’ve got a big project, you’re stressed, you have a test to do, something goes wrong, the day keeps getting worse, _aliens show up_ and you want something to pin it on. But just because he showed up and things started going downhill doesn’t mean hes responsible for them! Come on, man, we’re scientists! Correlation is not causation!”

“I’m not just going to forgive him!”

“I’m not asking you to, that would be fucked up,” Alec said firmly. “Even if he didn’t mean to, he was still part of why your arm got cut off, and even if he’s said he didn’t mean it to _me_ , he has his own apologies to make, and that’s between you two. All I’m asking is that you take a look at how you treat him and why, and how _you_ want to be as a person.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m saying that I’m effectively you from six months ago, and I’ve just seen a future version of me get accused of _shooting someone in the face_ and not even trying to _deny_ it, and I never thought I was that person. I’ll give you extenuating circumstances, and the fact that he can’t die, but like… I didn’t think we were the kind of person to hurt someone for hurts sake.”

The rebuttal Gordon had rising in his throat died there, sticking and choking him up. Alec was still sitting there, watching his reaction with a carefully neutral expression. He wasn’t being judgmental, Gordon realized. After all, aside from six months and an arm, they were the same person. He could probably _see_ how Gordon got to the point he was at now.

But, unlike Gordon, he had an outside perspective. And that perspective was pretty fucked up.

“I’m… we’re not,” he said weakly, and Alec hopped off the desk, crossing the room in a few quick strides to pull him into a hug.

“I know, man,” he said as Gordon collapsed into the embrace. Hugging was weird in the HEV suit - with only the helmet missing, he couldn’t really feel anything - and hugging his clone made it weirder. But, Alec also knew what he found most comforting, and he sagged a little more when a hand came up and started gently running over his matted, tangled hair. “All of this shit is fucked. I just don’t want you to come out of this with any more regrets or trauma than you need to.”

Because that would, wouldn’t it? Finding out what he was capable of, having to live with that once they got out of here ( _if_ they got out of here, but right now he was optimistic).

“Look,” Alec continued. “If Benrey is bugging you, I can keep him distracted. He’s probably going to want to talk to you at some point, though, because he - he really does _not_ understand some basics about human biology. Back when he thought I was you, he thought my arm had grown back, and it took Tommy and I like, half an hour today to get through to him that human limbs don’t do that.”

“A lot of good that does,” Gordon grumbled into his shoulder. Alec sighed.

“Fair. All I’m saying is that he fucked up, and he does feel bad about it. Just keep in mind when he makes his apology that his perspective is really different.”

Gordon grumbled wordlessly a little longer, just to make himself feel better, before finally relenting. “I’ll _try_.”

“Great.” Alec smoothed his hair out one more time, then pulled back. “Alright. We should probably get back to the Science Team before they start thinking I killed you or something.”

“Yeah, we should. Don’t want to give Dr. Coomer any reason to renegade on his “no killing Alec” promise.”

Bubby, Tommy and Coomer were all asleep by the time they got back to the storage room, leaving only Benrey, eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. He was oddly quiet as they walked up, simply looking up at them from his spot on the floor, then away. Gordon did catch that his eyes lingered a little longer on his missing arm, though. Maybe Benrey _did_ feel bad about it. At least Alec’s existence explained some of his confusion over why his arm was missing.

“Well, I’m gonna pass out for however many hours,” he announced, picking a spot against the wall that didn’t look too gross. “Wake me up when we’re ready to head out.”

“Sure thing, bro,” Benrey monotoned, shooting him a pair of fingerguns without changing his expression. Gordon resisted the urge to snap back at him, instead lying down and turning away.

He had almost drifted off when he heard Alec speak up. “Hey, Benrey?”

“Huh?”

“What’s the deal with the passports? I don’t remember that being part of the security protocol when I signed them.”

There was a moment of silence. “They’re uh… not,” Benrey admitted, and Gordon was wide awake again. It took everything in him not to roll over right there and start shooting.

“Then why keep asking Gordon about them?”

The crystal sound of Sweet Voice rug out, but with his eyes closed, Gordon couldn’t see the colors. “They’re… important. Gonna need ‘em, makes things… makes things a lot easier. Safer.”

“Easier how?” There was another burst of Sweet Voice, this one sustained. “Sorry, Benrey, I don’t know what that means.”

“Mmm… don’t worry about it, please? No worry from good friend BonBon?” Alec chuckled over the nickname, then sighed.

“Can you tell me, though, is that why you want Gordon to have one? To make things safer for him?”

“Whuh?”

There was another sigh. “Alright. Night, Benrey. Wake me up if you need something.”

Then their was quiet, aside from Benrey’s occasional humming, and Gordon eventually fell asleep wondering how the hell a passport would make him safer.


	4. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is one of my favorite scenes in the series and if you thought I wouldn't include it with the addition of another wrench in Gman's plans you're wrong.

“Doctor Freeeemaaaaan.”

“Oh goddammit,” Gordon muttered, “not this again.”

“What?” Alec asked, giving him a puzzled look.

“Just- just come out, dude, I know you’re there,” Gordon called to the empty room. There was a warping sensation as his vision went gray, then he was staring at a man in a pristine business suit.

“Doctor Freeman, it’s good to see you in such… good spirits. You are nearing the end of your-”

“Who the hell is that?”

“I-” The suited man paused, looking at Alec, then to Gordon, and back. It was the first time Gordon had ever seen him unnerved, but he recovered quickly, reaching up to straighten his already perfect tie. “I… apologize. I was… not expecting a second Doctor Freeman. You must… forgive my sudden… entrance, but I needed to talk to… the primary Doctor Freeman. Excuse me.”

“Yeah, but who are you?” Alec gestured back to the rest of the Science Team, quietly floating in some sort of stasis. “And what the hell did you do to them?”

“Ah, they will be just fine… they are currently in… waiting, but will resume as soon as… I’ve spoken with the primary Freeman. Now, Doctor Freeman, you are nearing the end of your journey, and I thought it would be only fitting to-” He cut himself off suddenly as Benrey no-clipped in from the wall, stepping up to him.

There was a long, awkward beat. Gordon breathed a quiet “Holy shit.”

“You got credentials?”

“I was just asking him that,” Alec added. Benrey nodded sagely.

“Um…” The strange man glanced between the three of them, looking absolutely puzzled. “They’re in my… other coat, if you wouldn’t mind I’m trying to-”

“Yeah I wanna see them though?”

“I’d listen to him if I were you,” Alec said, grinning as the man grew more and more baffled. Even Gordon started to crack a smile.

“I’ve never seen him badger anyone else about this,” he whispered to Alec, whose grin widened. 

“Yo, you got Playstation Plus? Vouchers?” Benrey asked, and he was so earnest about it that neither Freeman could stop from laughing.

“Uh, I don’t - I don’t know what that - I really need to talk to-”

“I just want the free trial?”

Alec was bent in half trying to fight back laughter, Gordon leaning heavily on him.

“Right…” The man carefully stepped around Benrey, clasping his hands together. “Um… Doctor Freeman, if we could - this is a matter of grave importance, if you could-”

“Huh? Where are we?” Benrey asked, appearing behind Gordon and Alec, the latter who was nearly on the floor.

“His… _timing_ …” he wheezed, echoed by Gordon’s _“Yeah!”_ set them both off again.

“This next- you-” The man blinked slowly, looking down at them as they laughed, not paying any attention to his cryptic, but well meaning message. He sighed inwardly. “You- you know what. You’ll… you’ll figure it out. You’ll figure it out.” There was another warp of gray light, and then he was gone.

“Bro add me on PSN!” Benrey called after him, a moment too late. His head dropped when he realized the man was gone. “Man, I just wanna play games…”

“Th-thanks for that… Benrey,” Alec gasped from the floor between wheezy laughter. Gordon nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, thanks. I don’t know I could have put up with any more cryptic bullshit.”

He didn’t notice the brief, high flush that came to Benrey’s cheeks before he turned on heel, walking away. “Yeah, uh, just doin’ my job. Gotta check those Eye-Dees and stuff, so…”

“What the fuck are you two laughing about?” Bubby snapped. Gordon looked over to see the Science Team, now unfrozen, staring at them with mixed curiosity and concern (and annoyance, from Bubby’s end).

“Don’t worry about it,” Gordon said, helping Alec up. “Come on, let’s go.”


	5. Chapter 4

Their arrival at the Lambda lab was honestly a little underwhelming, especially after seeing a lot more aliens and clones and prototypes, because it was just a handful of old scientists and a portal to another dimension.

A portal that Alec was, apparently, forbidden to go through.

“I have a radiation suit!” he said. Gordon could almost hear the echo of his own voice saying that to Benrey, what felt like years ago. “Why can’t I go through?”

“That suit is outdated! There’s no way that it will be able to withstand the radiation in Xen!”

“But you’re letting Coomer and Tommy go through.”

“Dr. Coomer has ample enhancements that allow him to safely occupy Xen,” one of the scientists explained with clear exasperation. “And Dr. Coolatta has… special admin privileges.”

“That’s not gonna protect him from _radiation!_ ”

“It’s okay, Dr. Alec!” Tommy said. “I’m - I’ll be fine over there, but you won’t be, so you should stay here.”

“Bonbon can’t go through? Lame, softlocked my fave companion out of endgame dlc,”

“Benrey, what the fuck are you even saying,” Gordon asked, running a hand down his face. “Don’t answer that, that wasn’t an actual question. Look, if we want to get out of here, we need to take care of whatever’s on the other side of that portal first. And Alec, I don’t want you to just melt from the Xen radiation or whatever. I’m sorry, man, you have to stay here.”

He could tell Alec wanted to argue - fuck, he would have, if he was in Alec’s shoes. He would have _hated_ being left behind, especially knowing his friends were charging off into danger. “Well, what if we switched suits?” Alec asked. “I mean… Gordon, you’re in rough shape. If we traded suits, I could go through and you could rest up here.”

“Um, actually,” one of the scientists piped up, meek, “we’re… not exactly sure Dr. Freeman would _survive_ that right now.”

“ _What_?” The whole Science Team rounded on the unfortunate researcher, but Benrey surprisingly beat everyone to asking “Why not?”

“Well…” The scientist clicked his pen a few times, avoiding their eyes. “You see, he’s been… in the suit for a while now. With all the strain put on his body, the suit itself is probably doing… _quite_ a _lot_ to keep him alive and in a relatively painless state.”

“You are so lucky you added that ‘relative,’ buddy,” Gordon growled. The scientist inched backwards.

“Yes, well, um. While Dr. Freeman would be fine if we had the appropriate medical facilities, if we took him out of the suit _now_ , well… he’d probably suffer from shock, withdrawal, muscle atrophy or exhaustion… and that’s just the things that immediately come to mind!” He shook his head. “I’m afraid switching your suits is out of the question.”

“But letting him _go to another dimension_ while he’s _dying_ isn’t?” Alec asked incredulously.

“As it stands, we need to fix the Resonance Cascade before we _can_ do anything else!” the scientist insisted. “The HEV suit has been the only thing capable of adequately protecting insertion teams in the past, so-”

“Hold on.” Gordon stopped him, lifting one hand. “Hold up. What’s this about _past insertion teams_?”

“Uhhhh… That’s… not important right now. The _important_ thing is that we can’t get out of here safely until that portal is closed, and we can’t do that so long as it’s being held open by whatever is on the other side.”

“Or we could just go back?” Benrey suggested. “Got my… PS3 in the locker room. Don’t gotta leave.”

Gordon closed his eyes and quickly counted to ten. “Benrey, I’m going to assume you’re trying to be _helpful_ here,” he said slowly, “but we need to go _home,_ man. We can’t just stay here forever.”

Benrey mumbled something under his breath and turned away.

“Look, can I at least join them to the test chamber?” Alec asked.

“Actually, I _will_ need some assistance in operating the machinery necessary to direct the portal,” the scientist admitted. “And even without the full Black Mesa training, you are outstanding in your field.”

“But you’re _not_ coming through,” Gordon said firmly. Alec raised his eyebrows, and Gordon shot him a look. “Look, I know what _I_ would do, so I know what you _might_ do. If you jump through the portal after us I’m kicking you back myself.”

Alec frowned, but nodded. “Fine.”

“Good. Now that that’s sorted, we have to actually _reach_ the test chamber…”

—

Being left behind was the _worst_ , Alec decided, watching the Science Team vanish in a flash of green light. They had no way to know for sure if the Science Team would be successful, and the only way they _would_ know was if the portals stopped.

Assuming, of course, they actually understood the cause for the portals.

The scientist (now dead, thanks to an errant rocket from Dr. Coomer that Alec had just managed to avoid) had mentioned some sort of powerful being holding the portals open. He’d seen a _lot_ of aliens today, but there were only two people he might have describe as “powerful beings.”

And one of them had very heavily hinted that the Science Team _shouldn_ _’t_ go through to Xen.

Alec paced the catwalk above the portal, glancing down at it every now and again. There was too much that didn’t make sense. Benrey knew, or at least, seemed to know, what was awaiting them in Xen. Was he responsible for the portals? Or was he trying to help them, in his own way? He was pretty attached to the original Gordon and, by extension, Alec as well. Maybe he’d started something, and didn’t _want_ to see it through? And how the hell did _passports_ play into it?

There was that other person as well, the man that had stopped time on their way to the Lambda Lab. With that kind of power, he could easily have been responsible for the portals. But then, why _guide_ Gordon to the end, to close them? Unless he was playing some bigger game…

He was so lost in his thoughts, he almost missed it when the portals started to fizzle out. The first few, small rifts floating at the edges of the room, began to pop out, sizzling like quiet, crackling fireworks. It was the larger one drifting up near the catwalk that vanished in an explosive _crack_ that finally startled him back to reality.

He ran to the railing overseeing the rest of the room. The sickly green portals were wavering, the smallest ones vanishing with little puffs of green smoke, the larger ones fluctuating and warping before snapping out of existence. The air smelled like ozone, and Alec could feel the hair on the back of his neck prickling. He shivered, and kept his eyes locked on the largest portal, in the dead center of the room.

“C’mon…” he whispered, refusing to take his eyes off of it. Across the room, a headcrab screamed as the portal it was crawling through snapped shut, bisecting it. “Come on, guys, get _back here-!_ ”

The main portal flashed violently, arcs of energy lashing off of it and cracking against the steel beams supporting it.

“Come on!”

The light coming from it became blinding, and for a split second, he saw a thin silhouette. There was a deafening crack, and Alec was thrown backwards, landing hard on his back against the catwalk floor.

He sat up as quickly as he could, ears ringing, blinking sunbursts from his vision as he struggled up to look down at where the portal had been.

The portal was gone. He was alone.

He sunk down against the railing, staring in disbelief. That… that _couldn_ _’t_ be right. The Science Team had done it, so why weren’t they here? They must have come back, somehow. They wouldn’t have just… gotten _stuck_ in Xen, right?

His ears were still ringing when the world warped around him, throwing it into grayscale. He only noticed when someone gently tapped him on the shoulder, and he leapt up, spinning around.

The man in the suit stood there, hands at his side. “Doctor Freeman,” he said, just loudly enough for Alec to hear. “Doctor _Alec_ Freeman, to be more… specific. Sorry to have… startled you, but I thought you… might appreciate some good news.”

Alec blinked slowly at him. “What?”

“Your counterpart, and your associates have… successfully completed their task… much to their benefit and that of my… employers,” he said, his voice measured and methodical. “As such, I saw it fit to… expedite their extraction from Black Mesa. As a thank you, perhaps.” He chuckled, and the sound was dry and rattling. “Although I will admit to having some… ulterior motives, in that regard. Do you know how difficult it is… to shepherd a party of grown men… to a Chuck. E. Cheese’s birthday party?”

“A-” Alec stared. “I’m sorry, a _what?_ ”

“Tommy made it clear that… he expected you along as well… and despite your, let us say, _unexpected_ appearance in this story, you did play a… significant role in how things turned out. All for the best, I must say. Perhaps even… better, considering your effect on a certain… Wild Card, in play.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I am sure an intellectual… such as yourself will be able to… parse the finer details out later,” the man said. “Now, we had best be going.”

“Wait. So, hold on. Aliens attack the earth, the Science Team destroys the Black Mesa and the US military, stops the alien invasion, and then we just… go? To a _restaurant_? Like a normal day?” He threw his hands up in the air. “How the fuck does that make sense?”

The man’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes changed just a little, and when he spoke again, his voice was somehow flatter. “I’m not having this discussion again,” he said simply, and then the world warped around him again and Alec found his ass in the seat of a Chuck E. Cheese’s booth.

“Alec!” Tommy waved to him, charging across the Chuck E. Cheese’s with a trail of arcade tickets trailing from his coat pocket. “You made it!”

“I uh…” Alec looked around, feeling weirdly nauseous from the sudden change. “I sure did, buddy. Everyone okay?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said, suddenly less enthusiastic. “I mean… we stopped the aliens.”

Alec did a quick scan of the room. Bubby and Dr. Coomer were tearing it up on the dance floor, along with several Coomer clones. He was surprised Dr. Coomer hadn’t - oh, no, wait, there was the right hook. Gordon was sitting at another table, staring down at a slice of pizza and a cup of soda with a million-mile stare, and Tommy was here. Benrey…

“Where’s Benrey?”

Tommy fiddled with his tickets. “Um…” He glanced back at the rest of the Science Team, then lowered his voice. “Benrey… I don’t know why, it… I really feel like it wasn’t like him, but-”

“He was responsible,” Alec said. His stomach sank as the realization hit. “It _was_ him, wasn’t it?”

Tommy wrung his hands. “I don’t - I don’t think he _wanted_ it to be,” he said quietly. “Nothing- nothing about it was _right,_ it didn’t make any sense even by- by Benrey’s standards!”

“How’s… everyone?”

“Uh… I think Bubby and Dr. Coomer are okay. They’re - they aren’t really phased by anything,” Tommy said, and boy, Alec thought, was that an understatement. “Dr. Freeman… he’s not handling it so well.”

“He’s…” Alec winced. “Yeah, he’s been through a lot. And I… might have said that it probably wasn’t Benrey’s fault, earlier? That might have, uh… come round to bite me in the ass.”

“I don’t think so,” Tommy said seriously. “I think… I think it was hard on everybody, but I don’t think it was… I don’t think it was actually Benrey’s _fault_. He was just…” Tommy frowned, thinking. “I’m not sure, but I think Gordon thinking about it and not just uh, jumping to conclusions… I think it helped. A little.”

Alec glanced over to Gordon again. The man hadn’t moved, still staring blankly at his pizza. “Has he even moved since he got here?”

“Yeah, he ate a few slices of pizza. I think he’s just… a little shocked.”

“I’m gonna go talk to him.”

“That’s probably a good idea. You’ll have more luck getting through to him than we will, I think!” Tommy patted him on the back before heading off.

Alec took a moment to collect himself before walking over, sitting next to Gordon. “Hey, man,” he said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “How are you doing?”

“…” Gordon didn’t answer for a long moment, just staring blankly down. “I don’t know what the fuck just happened,” he finally said, voice quiet. “I mean… we got there, and there were a bunch of aliens everywhere, and Benrey was like… _huge_. And we were trying to figure out where we needed to go next, and he just… started saying all this shit? Kept popping in and out, saying weird stuff about the big plot. We get to where we’re supposed to find whatever big bastard is responsible for this and… it’s just him. Just sitting there.” His head dropped a little. “He didn’t even look _happy_ about it. If it was all his idea, you _know_ he would be gloating about it, saying like, dumb shit. I mean, he did say dumb shit, but… less sense than usual, even. Like he was just… playing a role. What does that make what we did?” He finally looked up at Alec. “The passports. It came down to those _stupid_ passports. Apparently, they were the source of his power, and he was badgering me to _make sure I had it on hand_ to what- kill him? I mean, we had to close the portals. Benrey knew that. Hell, he even like… let me destroy my passport. There’s no way he couldn’t have just stopped me if he wanted to.” He flexed his hands, one old, one new. “It’s all so… fucked up.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Alec said slowly, turning over what he’d learned in his head, “I’m not sure it wasn’t planned that way. That suit guy made it sound like everything was sort of… pre-planned or something.”

“That’s Tommy’s _dad_ ,” Gordon said, with a humorless chuckle. “Can you believe that?”

“Wait, seriously?” Alec looked over at the two. Standing next to each other, it was a lot more obvious - the tall, thin stature, the drawn face, the stiff posture. “Holy shit, he is, isn’t he.”

“I’m not sure Tommy knew until recently,” Gordon said. “He said he was an orphan who picked his own last name, so…”

Alec blinked, looking back at Gordon. “You’re deflecting.”

“Of _course_ I’m deflecting!” Gordon snapped. “How - everything _just_ happened, how am I even supposed to process all this?”

“You’re right, you’re right… you don’t have to process it now. But I’m here if you need to talk, or if you need someone to drag you out on the dance floor.” Gordon let out another dry laugh.

“If you think I’m going anywhere other than to _bed,_ you’re fucking insane, man.”

“Fair. I know I wouldn’t want to do anything after lugging that suit around.”

Gordon groaned. “Not looking forward to taking it off,” he moaned. “Especially after all this.”

“At least you have your arm back?”

“Yeah…” Gordon flexed his new right hand again. “It’s weird. Tommy’s dad just… made it, I guess? And I know it doesn’t negate me losing it, but it somehow makes me feel worse about Benrey- about killing him.”

“Like I said, I’m not sure there was any other way for it to go down.”

Gordon grunted. Alec patted his shoulder again.

“Yeah... I’m not sure how I’d feel about that, either.”

They sat another minute in companionable silence, watching as the Coomers tore up the dance floor, figuratively and literally.

“I think I’m just gonna… sit. Relax. Think for a bit.” He patted Alec’s hand with his new hand. “But uh… thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem, man,” Alec said, squeezing his shoulder as best he could through the HEV suit before wandering off. He knew a plea for solitude when he heard it.

He was meandering the arcade portion of the Chuck E. Cheeses when he spotted Tommy’s dad, staring out the window, frowning narrowly. He walked over, peering out to see what he was staring at.

“Uh. Is that… a skeleton?”

“Not just… a skeleton, Doctor Freeman,” Tommy’s dad intoned. “What you see is… a remnant of the entity defeated in Xen.”

“Benrey?!” He looked closer, and watched as the skeleton slowly turned its skull towards him. “I thought they killed him?”

“It is an… entity of some power, Doctor Freeman,” Tommy’s dad explained. “My employers expected that… it would be an appropriate antagonist for what needed to… transpire. What was unexpected… was the depth of the interactions it took… while in Black Mesa.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“While he has done his assigned task, he has always been a bit of an unknown variable,” Tommy’s dad continued, as though he hadn’t heard Alec. “And while I could remove him… Tommy likes him. However, I am… unclear on his intentions, here…”

“Well if he’s standing out there looking in, he’s probably waiting for an invite!” Alec said, storming away. He could see why Gordon was so exasperated with this man when he’d shown up near the final portal - just talking to him _felt_ infuriating. (He didn’t see the small, knowing smile on Gman’s lips after he turned away, but we did).

The parking lot was weirdly empty, and chilly for a New Mexico night, and he jogged over to the skeleton, which turned silently towards him. “Benrey? Best friend Benrey, is that you?”

It stared blankly at him, before silently lifting its hand to display something. Alec leaned in.

“Is that a passport?” he asked, baffled. “That’s… a passport. For a skeleton. Yeah,” he said, straightening up, “you’re Benrey.”

It let out a burst of blue Sweet Voice, and Alec laughed, catching the skeleton’s hand. “Come on, man, we gotta go inside. We all thought you were, dead, man!” He tugged him along, and after a moment’s resistance, the skeleton followed along. He didn’t really walk so much as he slid, noclipping along the ground.

“Gordon!” he called as he walked back into the restaurant. “Look who I found!”

Gordon looked up, then jolted, eyes going wide. He lurched to his feet, running over with a clatter of the HEV suit that drew attention from the rest of the Chuck E. Cheeses.

“Benrey?” he asked once he was in front of him. “Is that- are you Benrey, or just like, some random skeleton?”

The skeleton slowly turned its head, looking to Alec, who nodded, then back to Gordon. Its jaw opened slowly, and then-

“Uhh… thought human hands didn’t grow back? You another Feetman clone? Bonbon squared?”

“You fucking _asshole_ ,” Gordon growled, launching forward and wrapping his arms around Benrey. “You absolute fucking _dick_ , I thought you were dead!”

“Benrey?” Tommy called, bounding over. At his heels was a golden retriever the size of a small pony, and when Tommy saw the skeleton, he let out a little whoop. “Benrey!”

Alec found himself pulled into the hug by Tommy, seconds before the four of them were tackled to the ground by the giant dog. Distantly, he heard Dr. Coomer.

“Look, Professor Bubby! A wrestling challenge!”

“Doctor Coomer _no_!” Gordon yelled, half-laughing as the cybernetic scientist joined the fray, dragging a protesting Bubby along with him. Benrey, crushed under the bottom of the pile, let out a loud, rumbling cackle.

All in all, Alec thought, if he had to find out he was a clone and face down an alien apocalypse, he really couldn’t have wished for a better ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my secret santa gave me a few other prompts to work with, and because I'm an ambitious bitch, I have most of them in some stage of being written, so expect those to be tagged on as they're finished. They should all be in the same universe, so that's neat!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!


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